Track & Field was the originator of the button
mashing sports genre. While button mashing has gotten a
negative connotation during the later years of fighting
games as a method of attempting to play without any skill, button
mashing was the way to victory in this six event competition.
Released as Hyper Olympic in Japan by Konami, it paved the way for
future sports titles based on decathlon events. The game's release was
intended to tie in with the 1984 Summer Olympic games held in Los
Angeles. A sequel to the game was released as Hyper Sports (Hyper
Olympic '84 in Japan).

Atari snapped up the rights to bring this
massively popular arcade game home. One control scheme involved
rocking a joystick to the left and right as fast as possible to
make the athletes run. However, this practice had a tendency to
lead to a lot of broken joysticks. Atari eventually provided an
alternate controller that closely mimicked the arcade control
scheme. In Japan, Konami released the game for the MSX and Famicom. On
the MSX, the game was released over several volumes, 4 events per
volume, and added the 400 meter and 1500 meter dash. On the
Famicom, only the first four events are included. For more
information about the American release on the NES, see Track
& Field (NES).